Laurel Benjamin

Three Trees 

Some days, I feel a solution in my veins from high school chemistry 
but it doesn't last long. I never learned how to evaluate 

the rust red from the blue as my lab partner 
paced around the table, then completed each step of the process 

while dictating how to fill out the report. After the final exam 
she brought a box of Norwegian cookies. 

This week, I wish I could read water levels when the estuary 
shifts. Floods along the coast, I can follow. Gift of rushing 

water pink like lipstick, a mint algae coming loose, colors 
I fear. Clarity is something to be envied 

by houses who suffer mudslides, pushed off 
their foundation. Last month I saw a yellow tree. 

Every time I walked past jingle jingle, it's words 
sounding like coins. With each approach I held 

my breath. The leaves twirled then 
straightened, as if afraid of scraping its branches. 

It held me in its gaze. Then divided into three trees. 
A bleached knot. If I had ten cameras 

I could create the wardrobe of reflection. And after, 
I had so many questions with no one to answer.

Laurel Benjamin is a San Francisco Bay Area native, where she invented a secret language with her brother. She has work in Lily Poetry Review, The Shore, Sheila-Na-Gig, Turning a Train of Thought Upside Down: An Anthology of Women's Poetry, among others. Affiliated with the Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon and Ekphrastic Writers, she holds an MFA from Mills College. She is a reader for Common Ground Review and has featured in the Lily Poetry Review Salon. She was nominated for Best of the Net in 2022.